Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario.
J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2013 Apr;19(4):419-29. doi: 10.1017/S1355617712001488. Epub 2013 Feb 1.
Memory deficits and hippocampal abnormalities have been described in individuals with thyroid hormone (TH) insufficiencies; however, no study has yet examined their autobiographical memory (AM) abilities, which are known to be compromised by hippocampal damage. Investigations in adults have shown that AM consists of both episodic and semantic components and that the hippocampus is preferentially involved in episodic AM. The present study used the Children's Autobiographical Interview (CAI) to study episodic and semantic AM in 79 children aged 9 to 14 years, including 26 with early-treated congenital hypothyroidism (CH), 23 born to women with inadequately treated hypothyroidism during pregnancy (HYPO), and 30 typically developing controls. Results showed that relative to controls, CH and HYPO groups both exhibited weaknesses in episodic AM, but not semantic AM. In particular, CH and HYPO groups showed difficulty in recalling event details (i.e., the main happenings) and visual details from past experiences. Overall, this study highlights the importance of TH for early neurodevelopment and provides critical new insight into the effects of early treated TH deficiency on long-term memory performance. Furthermore, the present study indicates that the CAI is an effective tool for investigating episodic AM impairment in clinical pediatric populations.
记忆缺陷和海马体异常已在甲状腺激素（TH）不足的个体中描述过；然而，尚无研究检查过他们的自传体记忆（AM）能力，已知海马体损伤会损害 AM 能力。成年人的研究表明，AM 由情节和语义成分组成，而海马体则优先参与情节 AM。本研究使用儿童自传体访谈（CAI）来研究 79 名 9 至 14 岁儿童的情节和语义 AM，包括 26 名患有早期治疗的先天性甲状腺功能减退症（CH）的儿童，23 名母亲在怀孕期间患有治疗不足的甲状腺功能减退症（HYPO）的儿童，以及 30 名正常发育的对照组儿童。结果表明，与对照组相比，CH 和 HYPO 组在情节 AM 方面均表现出弱点，但语义 AM 没有。特别是，CH 和 HYPO 组在回忆过去经历中的事件细节（即主要事件）和视觉细节方面存在困难。总的来说，这项研究强调了 TH 对早期神经发育的重要性，并为早期治疗的 TH 缺乏对长期记忆表现的影响提供了重要的新见解。此外，本研究表明 CAI 是研究临床儿科人群情节 AM 损伤的有效工具。
